THE SQUARE MILE 1860-1914 by Julia Gersovitz. .,-:.~.~ia :Jerso:r·;;z. i"' a Mon:real. arci:iu:c: and ;;eaches at .VcGiH {!nilJersi!;l! 's Schoot .Jf Architecture

Examining our Lost architectural heritage through the hiU-side mansions of Montreal ' s Victorian aristocracy ...

T \\ontrealers know that were the mansions, isolated one from erbrool

8 View of Mc:GiZ'l ~ampus, after 1908

As may be expected from -this By 1870, the picture had change<. commercial, financial and rellgious statistic, the financiers and merchants dramatically. The city was buildings as well as the homes of the who lived there lived graciously, in prosperous. "Triumphs of architec-tural ordinary cit1zens and the wealthy opulent surroundings. Their residences skill... "we re everywhere. 2 What was merchants. were built by the leading architects of responsible for so radical ar. their time, and designed in the latest alteration? It was essentially due to Shortly before 1850, there was a styles, as only the very rich can ever technological advances that permitted decided residential shift out of the afford to do. Thus, an analysis of the the city to develop as a transportation crowded and busy old city. The first development of the Square Mile and nucleus and shipping center. These development occurred along St. its architecture, provides an included harbour improvements, 1\ntoine Street in the west and around oppurtunity to study the work of the year-round rail links with the United Viger Square m the east. But best Montreal architects, and to States, and the opening of the Victoria speculators were quick to realize the analyze the architectural trends that Bridge. potential of the area near and on the were fashionable at the time. Before southern slopes of \1ount Royal. Here tracing the evolution of the Square was the poss1bl11ty of spacious, Mlle, it is important to understand The economic boom that Montreal salubrious quarters, with the added something of the geographics and witnessed between 1850 and 1870 was attraction of splendid views and economics of Montreal just prior to paralleled by a growth in the city beautiful landscapes. 1860. limits. Prior to 1850, the population was still largely contained within an In 1832, James McGregor described its In 1849, the city was In the depths of area defined by the old fortification rustiC character: " ... the mountain is an economic depression. The walls - today known as Le Vieux about 800 feet above the level of the population had been decimated by Montreal. Within the triangle bounded river; along its foot, and particularly cholera and the 'ship fever' plague. by McGill Street to the west, Craig up its sides, are thickly interspersed Stores and houses were empty. The ~eetro~oo~a~~r~erwere orchards, cornfields and v11las; abov~ streets seemed deserted and dismal. located all the prmcpal administrative, which to the verv summit of the

9 The Fifth Column

'Pisiimorlt ', 1820 mountain, trees grow in luxuriant and 60's was followed by a building thell" increasing urban environment, to variety .•. ". 3 By 1&60. the orchards depression. The economic climate w~ p1cn1c, stroll and ride their carriages. were being cut down and the poor, and the political conditions development that was to result in the unstable. The major land assembly of The decade of the 1880's, in contrast Square Mile was beginning. the I 870's was undertaken not for to the 70's was a period much like the development, but to ensure 1860's, of increasing prosperity and Gceystone Decades 1&60-1390 non-development. In 1872, burgeoning growth in the city's expropnations began to create a pubUc population. lt culiminated in a The first residences built in the park on Mount Royal. Two years building boom between 1887 and 1890. Square Mile were randomly placed on later Fredick Law Olmstead, the The political climate was stable; their sites. They had little connection foremost landscape architect on the economic conditions were good. The to the public roads, because indeed conttnent, was hired to undertake the C.P.R. was under construction. there were hardly any roads. When design. Fortunes were amassed, and great development began in the 1850's and houses planned. early 1860's, it followed a set pattern. The opening of the park enhanced the Building OCC\Jred aher the subdivision value of the land in the Square Mile One of the most elaborate of these, of an existing estate, and the in a number of ways. Firstly, of and the only one largely intact today, homologation of a street (or streets) ause, by takmg hundreds of acres of was Lord Mount Stephen's house. It through it, so that each individual lot potenual real estate off the market it was built on Orummond Street, to the was afforded on a pubUc thoroughfare. increased the worth of the remaining designs of William T. Thomas, and TITOtJEhout most of the history of :he land that could be developed. was said to cost, in 1884, the princely Square \.tile. the north-south side Sea:ndly, it added a value to the area sum of $600,000.5 This statistic alone streets 'll.ere cul~e-sacs. !"Ullning up which now boasted a natural and sets the house apart. But more t.l'te :nount;u.., ~rom Sherbrooke Street. protected park as its own playground .mportant to the architectural This provided a quiet enclave for the and badecame historian is the fact that it was one reSldents of the area. As Stephen an extension of the Square Mile, of the last significant houses to be Leacock .,., rote: " ... Each street ~~o·as where :he wealthy could retreat from built in the district of the traditional thus blind with t.'lat blindness that ~ peace. ~ature aided. man. The elms that gro.,., so easily on Montreal bland, thus left !n secluded growth, fashioned eaft street into a Gothic Cathedral ..•".

This sequence can be traced in the di,·ision and sale of the \kTavish estate, the laying out of McTavish, Peel and Stanley Streets, and the construction of a number of large homes on the land. It was a time when pres :igious residences were knoo;s;n by the1r names, and not their adcresses. nese Included the 'Prince of '11. ales Terrace' (Browne and Footner, Architects, 1&60); 'Braehead' (Andrew B. Taf:, Architect, 1863); 'Thornhlll' ('1\'.T. Thomas, Architect, c.1862); 'Rav~nscrag' (J. '11.. Hop!< ins, Architect, 1861..(;3}; 'The Elms' (J.W. HOJ)klns, Architect, c.l862); 'Lononlet' (J. \\. Hopkin.s. Architect, c.l865); and 'Oilcoosha' (J.J. Browne, Architect, c.l86.5).

The boom period of the late 1850's

10 The Square Mile

Montreal greystone. acquainted; that it becomes 1860's this style was bemg abandoned whiter and brighter with age; for a variety of increasingly popular lhe rockface of Mount Royal, and the that this in a very hght stone revivals that were being developed in bedrock of the island is a h ard grey is a very great recommendation, England and the United States. limestone, designated by geologists as for while dark stones are, mOst Trenton Limestone. Up to the end of of them, improved with age and Their use in Montreal was mdicative the n tneteenth century most of become meUower in tone, in of the growing number of trained Montreal's architecture was built of white building marbles and stone architects practicing in the city by this greystone, cut from local quarries. almost as pure in colour when the 1860's. Until that time, it was The native stone is tough, and not new, a'W only means dirt and common practice for contractors to easy to wor k, but it has unique stam•..• prepare the designs of even the most properties. The following excerpt elaborate residences. 7 \icKays from an article about the Cavenhill The domestic a rchitecture of the Directory of 1856- 57 listed onJy nine Block in the January 1870 issue of period 1860-1890 was distinguished by architectural and civil engmeering American Architect and Builders several characterist ics. lt related to firms. By 1870 the list had swollen Monthly, gives some idea of what the architecture that precee

The burgeoning eclecticism can most readily be seen m a chronological analysis of the houses built during the 1860's on the \1cTavish estate. The first, The Prince of Wales Terrace, was opened in 1860. lt was sited on Sherbrooke Street. between McTavish and Peel Streets. The architects patterned tt on the English terraces popularized by John Nash in London, and the Woods in Bath. lt was thus one of the last buildings in the simple, yet elegant Ceorgian idiom.

The gothic 'Braehead', its neighbour 'The Elms', and the ltallanate 'lhornhill', owed much to the ideas of Andrew Jackson Downing and his theories of the picturesque which demanded asymmetry and varied massmgs. 'Ravenscrag', sited further up the hill, was also in " ..• t~e Italian style of architecture• .•", with a

11 The Fifth Column

both c .1862 sprawling pian and varied elevations, a trend begun in 1&&4 in the financial pierced by to\1.·ers. 'Lononlet', on the The general reduction in the scale of district of the old city with the other hand, was tightly confined by a the buildings that began in the I &80's Standard Life Assurance Building, and rectangular plan, and its roof toppe

By the end of the nineteenth century, Montreal was the banking center of Canada. The financiers, railway barons and the captains of trade and tndustry sought to build homes in the Square Mile commensurate to their newly found status. Some were rich and powerful enough to assemble large tracts of land for their mansions, even going as far as to demolish existing houses to enlarge their gardens.

But for most the approach was more low-key. The available, unbuilt-upon land was scarcer, and more expensive. Even when the houses were large, they were restncted to much smaller lots than previously. By and large, thts :neant that they were more closely aligned to the street. The early houses were set back from their streets by gracious expanses of lawn and drive. As the lots became shallower. the homes moved toward, to accommodate stables and service yards at the back. 'Dilcoosha ', c .J86S

12 The Square Mile

'MoW'lt View', c.1870 The Gothic Cot~es, 1870 glowed in colour. Polychromy was they had to be modified. popular, both for the As Percy and 60's, speculators bought the interior and the Nobbs wrote in 1914: " .. .In exterior. lt is no recent remaining mansions, and cleared the wonder that in an domestic work of the better dass age which revelled in ... we sites for apartment houses. As to russets, deep may see the beginning of a new and greens and rich browns, the their architectural merit, one might pale soft really Canadian architecture with a grey of Montreal limestone was rational best quote Percy Nobbs: " ... Alter the relation to English traditions war, discarded in favor of the more and we had to forget architecture Canadian conditions".9 and mteresting palette offered by other content ourselves with stones. accommodation engineering. .. ".10 By 1914 the Square '-iile had already The begun towe-s, grossly out of scale with their to experience the beginnings of surroundings, 'Jew styles were also being introduced the two trends - high-rise were designed by construction balance-sheet calculations into the Square Mile. From the and demolition - that and 30-year United were ultimately depreoation schedules States came the Romanesque to destroy it. The end of the First rather than by of H.H. Richardson, the architects themselves. and the Francois World War also meant the end of the I Chateau popularized by Richarc:' era of the great mansions. The sons Today, \!!orris Hunt. From England came the of Square very little of the glory of the Milers who came home Square Mile detailing and massing of the Queen moved to is evident. Corporations smaller houses in .ike Alcan and Anne Revival. By 1900, the chastly Westmount. Ten Corby's Distmers are pale, years after the end to be commended severely cubic form of the of the war, the for their Classical stock market crashed, preservation efforts. Revival appeared. and with it the sheltered One can only and carefree hope that .\llcGill University, life that had been so carefully the It is important to emphasize that the !arRest propeny owner in the area, nurtured in the Square Mile since the will continue stylistic characteristics of each of 1860's. to be encouraged and these Revivals were never just brought funded to protect what remains of our into the Square Victorian architectural heritage Mile, and applied Sherbrooke Street became e unaltered. The exigencies increasingly of the commercial. Houses were split harsh Canadian winters up References meant that into boutiques. Throughout the 1950's I. Sybil Bolton, The Golden Square \-lile, The Montrealer, XL, 5, May 1966, p.35 2. American Architect and Builder's \ionthly, Vol.l, April 1870, p.22 3. James \llcGregor, British America, VoJ.U, 1832, p.518 4. Stephen Leacock, Montreal: Seaport and City, 1942, p.229 5. American Architect and Builder's \1onthly, The Story of the Mount Stephen Club, 1967, p.6 6. American Architect and Builder's Monthly, Vol.l, Jan. 1870, p.7 7. Ramesay Traqua.~r, The Buildings of McGill University, McGill Uruverstty Publications, Series Xlll, No.2, 192-', pp.6-7 8. Canadu1n Illustrated News, ov. 30, 1872, p.))9 9. Percy E. 'Jobbs, Canadtan Architecture, Canada and its Provinces, Voi.XII, p.67J 10. Percy E. 'lobbs, Architecture in the Province of Quebec during the Earlier Years of the 20th Century, Roval Architectural Insti tute of Canada Journal, "'ov., 1956, p.419

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